Code Lyoko: 1 Arrival at Kadic, part 1 of 3
by The Belpois Effect
Summary: The beginning of a new Code Lyoko series starts here, with new characters, new adventures, and shocking twists and turns...  This is part one of three of story no. 1, with 50 stories in all.


"So where are we supposed to meet Ginger, again?" Ashley and Alex walked across the dirt yard outside the dormitory building at Kadic Academy, and paused to glance up at the three story building, shielding their eyes from the glaring sun as they did so. Ashley's shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair rippled in a summer breeze that carried the sounds of laughing teenagers and singing birds. Her fair skin had already begun to turn a slight red in the sunlight despite some looming clouds, and Alex noticed this, pulling her into the shade of the building's covered walkway.  
>"Sorry, you're starting to turn red…she said that she'd be waiting for us on the third floor of the dormitory building, in the left room at the end of the hall. I suppose we're to assume that's her room."<br>"All right. You know, I wish I was Latino like you sometimes…you people seem to never burn." She laughed. Alex's light green eyes shifted from side to side as she spoke, trying to take in everything that was going on around them at what would be their home for the next school year. Ashley then grabbed his hand and pulled him into the dormitory building, excited to finally meet Ginger, someone who she was very close friends with, but had never actually met. They both hurried across the small lobby that was directly inside the doors, passing a registration desk where students were signing up for room partners. There was a corridor opposite the desk that led to some presumably empty classrooms, as classes didn't start for a whole week. They had almost reached the stairwell, when a voice called out:  
>"Hey, you two, hold on a second!" Ashley and Alex stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked around. The voice had come from a middle-aged woman sitting behind another registration desk. "No student is allowed upstairs until he or she is registered with a dorm partner." Alex turned to Ashley.<br>"You should bunk with Ginger, she'll have no problem about it."  
>"And you?" Asked Ashley. "You don't know anyone here yet."<br>"Yes you do!" Said a voice from right next to them. Alex spun around to find himself face to face with his old classmate, Sam, whose face was split into a wide grin. "Dude! It's been a while, hasn't it?" He brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes in order to get a better look at Alex.  
>"Sam, what are you doing here?" Alex laughed, shaking his old friend's hand. "I haven't seen you since middle school!" "I'm here to study music, what else?" Sam motioned to the guitar case he had slung across his back, along with a few duffel bags. "And Computer Sciences as well. What about you, compadre? And who's your friend?" He looked over at Ashley curiously.<br>"This is Ashley. She's been my best friend since about forever. Ashley, this is Sam. He was one of my best pals back in middle school."  
>"Nice to meet you, Sam!" Ashley cheerfully said, as she shook his hand. "Same to you! Hey, no worries-any friend of Alex is a friend of mine!" Sam laughed. "Anyways, how's about we get you set up? And what's this I hear about Ginger?"<br>"She's here at Kadic too!" Alex said, following Sam over to the registration desk. "We were actually on our way to meet her. And to answer your question, Computer Sciences and Photography. I guess we'll be taking some classes together, huh?"  
>"Yeah, which is excellent. Don't know anyone here…I'll be bunking with this fellow…Alex, his name is." Sam spoke the last part to the registrator, who asked Sam to point Alex out on a list of names. "Here he is. Ashley, what are you studying here?"<br>"You two men are just upstairs, farthest room to the right." The registrator handed Sam two room keys, then turned to Ashley. "And you, miss?"  
>"I'll be bunking with Ginger…there, right there…" Ashley motioned to Ginger's name on a list of females already on the third floor. "And to answer your question, Sam, French Art and Photography…thank you!" Ashley smiled at the registrator who had just given her a room key.<br>"Artsy, huh?" Sam commented, as the three walked up the stairs to the second floor landing "Should be fun to have a relaxed soul around." Alex smiled and rolled his eyes, knowing better. As the threesome passed the second floor landing, Alex glanced down the hallway momentarily.  
>"Ugh. What's he doing here?" Sam and Ashley paused to look down the hallway at the boy Alex was glaring at. He had very short brown hair, an athletic build, and a tan body, suggesting he spent much time outside.<br>"Who's the kid?" Sam asked, as they rejoined Alex on the staircase.  
>"Caleb. I used to go to school with him back in the states. He's an arrogant little douche bag. Probably here to run track for Kadic." He then stalked off up the stairs, obviously not happy that the boy was at Kadic as well.<br>"I get the feeling they don't get along very well." Sam said to Ashley, who laughed.  
>"What made you say that?"<br>"Just a hunch." When the two reached the top of the stairwell and stepped onto the landing that led to the girl's floor, they found Alex chatting amicably with a white girl with short brown hair. "Ginger!" The girl stopped talking and peered around Alex, then walked over to Sam with an expression of shock and delightment on her face.  
>"Sam? What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since middle school!" "Heh, small world, huh? It's great to see you too." He then embraced Ginger in a hug, but ended it quickly as to not make things awkward.<br>"Ginger! It's great to finally meet you!" Ashley said as she walked up to her. "I'm Ashley. If you hadn't guessed. Ahahaha."  
>"It's great to meet you too! I hear you're my new roomie, huh?" Ginger started walking down the dormitory hall, and they all followed her. "Our room is down here, the very last room on the left." Ginger reached her room and walked in, followed by Ashley. Sam and Alex stopped outside, still burdened by their bags.<br>"If you girls don't mind, we're going to go settle in as well." Alex said, shifting under the weight of his things.  
>"O.K., but wait, hold on!" Ginger poked her head out of her room and stopped them as they were starting to walk back down the hallway. "There's something really cool I have to show you guys. I found it when I came here a year ago through some exchange program. Meet me and Ashley at the park crossroads, O.K.?" The boys nodded their heads. "Right. See you in ten." Ginger gave them both a thumbs up, then retreated back into the room and closed the door. "Wonder what she has to show us?" Sam mused out loud as they reached the stairwell. "Probably some wolf den. You know how she is about those things!" They both laughed, remembering Ginger's almost unhealthy obsession with the animal back in middle school. "Which one was our room again? Farthest to the right?"<br>"Yeah, that's right…oh great. He's still here." As the two reached the second floor landing and started to walk down the hall, Alex grimaced at the boy he had complained about earlier. "Hello, Caleb. What a surprise, seeing you here of all places." The athletic boy turned around, nearly hitting his room partner in the face with a bag as he did so. "Alex! What's up, man? Have a good summer? Know I did. Can you believe we're juniors in France, of all places! Heh, I mean really! And who's this guy?" Caleb motioned to Sam as he spoke. "Play any sports? The name's Caleb." He held out his oddly beefy hand, and Sam took it and shook awkwardly, obviously not used to such formalities.  
>"Nope, no sports…I'm Sam. Nice to meet you. Alex's told me some about you." Sam smirked, but Caleb seemed not to notice. Instead, he reached around Sam for the guitar case he had on his back. "Whoa, guitar? You play? Me too! Dude, we need to hang sometime and jam out. I need to practice some songs for my girlfriend. Janna, she's called. Stayed back in the states. She's a senior." Caleb winked. "Hot stuff." Sam laughed uncomfortably and pulled away, putting Caleb out of reach of his guitar.<br>"Love too. Yup. Yeah! So, we'd better get going. We're going to meet up with some friends later. Bye now." Sam started to walk down the hall, pulling Alex along as he went. "…he touches my guitar…" He muttered, as Caleb waved after them. "I don't like him."  
>"I told you so." Alex stated matter-of-factly. "He's a real douche. And all he can talk and care about is himself, no matter how much he denies it. Hey, roadrunner, slow down. You're about to pass our room." Alex reached out and grabbed their room's doorknob, preventing Sam from walking through the double doors at their end of the hall. "You've got the keys, yeah?" "Here." Sam tossed a small metal key to Alex, then inserted his own into the lock and twisted. A click let them know the door was unlocked, and they pushed their way in. Their room wasn't terrible-a bed on either wall, two wardrobes, and a long desk which stood under a large window at the end of the room-but it wasn't exactly the Penthouse Suite at the Ritz-Carlton.<br>"I'll take this bed." Sam announced, throwing his stuff onto the bed on the right. "We'll unpack later, right? Caleb talked too much, and we might be late to meet the girls."  
>"Right." Alex set his things down on the bed to the left, then walked over to the window and gazed out. "Looks like we have to head behind Administration to get to the park from here…and to get to Administration, the part where we need to go, anyways, we have to pass the mess hall, then turn left."<br>"Let's get going, then!" Sam called, already out the door. Alex followed, shutting and locking the door behind him. He was grateful to notice that Caleb was gone from his post in the hallway as they passed his room's closed door, from behind which came the sounds of a guitar being badly tuned. When they reached the stairwell, they paused, Sam looking over at Alex. "You think we should call them? Make sure they haven't stopped to curl their hair?" Alex laughed.  
>"I got it." He said, pulling his cell out of his pocket, an expensive looking iPhone 4.<br>"Whoa, dude. Snazzy mobile."  
>"Thanks. It was part birthday present from my parents. It's also my camera." He laughed again. "Oh, here we go…Ginger? You guys ready?" A slight squawking was heard from the phone. "Already there? How? Never mind, we're on our way. Be there in five, granted we aren't stopped by Caleb again." He cut the connection, turning to walk down the remaining stairs. "So our plan is if Caleb stops us, we tell him the Guitar Club's in the Gym, waiting on him, yes?"<br>"Sounds good." Sam chuckled, following Alex out into the bright sunlight. "So we go past the mess hall…it's that right there." He pointed at a trailer-looking structure a bit in front of them to their left. There was another similarly shaped building right across from it, assumedly another mess hall.  
>"We walk right through there," Alex said, pointing to the walkway between the two buildings. "Then we just keep going from there until we hit Administration. C'mon, let's go." They started walking towards the mess hall, passing some students that were chatting amicably.<br>"Fancy getting a bite to eat?" Sam said loudly, trying to conceal the rumbles of hunger coming from his stomach. Alex chuckled.  
>"No, not at all. If only it was unlocked." He grinned. "I've got some M&amp;M's if you want 'em. Freshness not guaranteed." "Nah. I'd rather not be tempted by that fickle mistress, chocolate. Hey, where do we go from here, again?" They had reached the end of the mess hall walkway, turned left at a black metal fence, and were now walking towards a large stone building. "That building over there's the Science building…" Alex mused, motioning towards the building off a ways to their right, beyond which a running track was visible. "…which means this one is Administration." He pointed towards the large, beige-colored stone building that was looming ever larger in front of them. "We just go around back and we should be at an entrance to the park."<br>"Sounds good." The boys turned to walk parallel to the Administration building, heading to the back where a grove of trees was now visible.  
>"So, Sam, what's this I hear about you and a certain Crissa?" Alex winked at Sam, who grimaced. "You leave her back in the states too?"<br>"Yeah. But it's because we ended it-turns out she was lying about a lot of things." He rolled his eyes. "And she couldn't really play guitar."  
>"I'm shocked." Alex chortled, turning the corner, now faced with a wall of trees a bit in front of him. "Looks like we made it…" He felt a buzzing in his pocket, and fished his phone out. "Yes? … Yeah, we're right behind Administration. We should be there in a second. … Oh, c'mon. We would've waited for you. Besides, you know us. Can't find our way around anywhere. … All right, all right. We'll hurry." Alex ended the call as the duo reached the shade of the trees. "Ginger's getting antsy. She says to hurry up, that if it gets darker we'll have to head back." Sam looked up through the canopy of trees where beams of sunlight were filtering through.<br>"It's only three. Why would she be worried about it getting dark?"  
>"She might be talking about those clouds back there." Alex waved his hand behind him, where Sam saw a thick layer of storm clouds starting to form over Kadic. The boys walked on in silence for a bit, the only noises coming from the crunching of rocks under their feet as they walked down the path and the noises from the fauna that lived in the woods that surrounded them. Then Sam spoke up.<br>"I can see them. Ginger, Ashley, hey!" Two shadowy figures stepped out from under the shade of a large oak tree close to the crossroads, and walked towards them.  
>"It's about time you two got here!" Ginger called. "What kept you?"<br>"Caleb. This annoying kid from our hall. He touched my guitar." Sam made a face, and Ashley laughed, close enough now to see the boys.  
>"It wasn't all that bad. I got some nice pictures!" Ashley held up her camera, then let it drop back around her neck and turned to Ginger. "Now that everyone's here, could you tell us where we're going?"<br>"Sure. Follow me." Ginger turned, and led them down the path in the crossroads that was right in front of them. After a few minutes of walking, Sam spoke up.  
>"Wait a second, Ginger, this goes back to the school." Sam said, catching up to her. "We're gonna end up at the gym."<br>"I hear the guitar club's practicing there!" Ashley giggled madly, having been told what happened with Caleb by Alex. Sam grimaced and rubbed his back, seeming to try and erase Caleb's touch. "Don't worry guys, I know where we're going." Ginger said, smiling. "And it's not back to the school." After a few minutes of walking and chatting, an ominous rumble of thunder stopped them all in their tracks.  
>"Ginger, are we close? It's going to pour soon." Alex said, glancing up through the thick canopy of trees at the darkening sky above them.<br>"Don't worry, we're here." Ginger said, turning to them. "Can any of you see anything?" Everyone glanced around momentarily, then turned back to Ginger, puzzled.  
>"I see the clearing that leads to the tool shed up ahead over there." Sam said, pointing to a lighter area of trees farther ahead on the path. "Is that it?"<br>"No…what about you guys?"  
>"Nothing." Alex said, taking a last look around. "Should we be seeing something?"<br>"Yes. Ashley, what about you?"  
>"Well..." Ashley paused, her light brown eyes surveying the area carefully. "I saw the clearing, like Sam pointed out. But I knew that what you wanted to show us was better than that, by the way you were acting back in the dormitory." She then glanced downward at the path, seeming to analyze the footprints of woodland creatures and humans that had long since disappeared. "Then I noticed my shoe was untied. When I looked down to start and tie it, I noticed that the grass at the edge of the path here…" She nudged at a part of the path edge with her converse-clad foot. "...was lighter and not as thick as everywhere else on the path edges." Everyone glanced around, surprised to see that she was right. "So I assume that what you want to show us is right down this here path. Or what's left of it." She coughed lightly and scuffed her shoe against the forest path as they all stared at her in amazement.<br>"Brilliant. Thanks for making the X/Y's sound like morons." Alex clapped her on the back, smiling, as they followed Ginger down what could now be defined as an old path leading deeper into the woods.,4$  
>"It wasn't that hard." She laughed back. "Besides, I'm sure you making me look stupid isn't terribly difficult. You'll get caught up."<br>"You're right, it should be easy." He laughed as he dodged Ashley's punch. "You weren't supposed to agree with me!" She huffed, looking peeved, yet happy their friendship hadn't lost any of its luster after the few years of separation it had endured.  
>"So you guys go back quite a ways, is that right?" Sam said while quickly stepping in-between them, preventing any further friendly quarrels.<br>"Right! This beautiful blonde over here was born in the same hospital as me, and it just started from there. Stalking me even as a kid, what a creeper." Alex grinned over at Ashley who responded by shooting her camera flash in his face. "We swam together as kids, although we didn't know each other back then." Ashley then stumbled over a thick wad of tangled grass, and grabbed Sam's shirt for support. "Sorry!"  
>"It's fine." He smiled down at her and offered her his hand. Ashley took it, blushing slightly.<br>"Yeah, watch your step up here." Ginger called back over her shoulder, a few feet in front of them. "It's gotten more overgrown than when I left it."  
>"We're getting close, right?" Alex called to Ginger, glancing above them. The sun had all but disappeared behind some nasty-looking clouds, and what light managed to filter through the thick canopy of branches and leaves was dim and often accompanied by the wispy smell of oncoming rains.<br>"Oh yeah. Just a bit farther!"  
>"Anyways, as I was saying…" Continued Ashley, having regained her composure. "I moved down to North Carolina first, then he followed me a few years later. He just couldn't deal without me."<br>"Yes, of course. And pigs fly." Alex smirked, and continued. "When I moved down there, she had actually set up shop right across the street from me. We even went to the same schools from K – 5th. My exuberant personality drew her in, and we naturally became close friends, doing everything from pretending my backyard was a haunted house in a swamp to destroying her dolls in unfortunate car accidents." He sighed, and shook his head. "Poor Ken. He lost so many Barbies that year. Then of course, he died too, so I guess it's even." He and Ashley laughed, and Sam scoffed, but smiled nonetheless.  
>"Four or five years ago, I moved to Oregon because my dad got a new job there." Ashley started talking again, continuing the story. "It didn't work out. We moved back over to the East Coast, but to Virginia." "And there our story ends, aside from a few birthday parties and such." Alex concluded, fixing his hair. The wind had picked up a bit, creating a slightly creepy atmosphere in the woods, what with the branches of the trees scraping against each other, the leaves rustling, and the absence of the sounds of woodland creatures in the surrounding woods.<br>"Nice! You two've got a close bond. Now...what exactly about this Caleb kid pisses you off so much, Alex?"  
>"He's just…" Alex seemed to struggle for words, fists clenching and unclenching. "He's…like…he's just so full of himself! He thinks he owns the world. He's so damn polite all the time. He puts on LOADS of cologne, it's sickening. He's good at everything. He's so arrogant, though. He was different freshman year, but he changed. High School does funny things to a person." He sighed, looking down at the rocks and weeds passing under his feet. "Just stay away from him, my advice."<br>"Advice you should take, Ashley." Sam commented. "Just strike up a conversation with him once and you'll see."  
>"I'll keep that in mind." She smiled, but it quickly disappeared from her face. "We've been walking for quite a bit now. Shouldn't we be there?" She frowned. "Ginger?" She called. "Are we there? If not, we should head back. Unfamiliar woods like these are treacherous in dim light, and even more when it rains."<br>"Don't worry, we're here!" Ginger called to them from where she was standing a bit ahead on the path. She was illuminated by some stray sunbeams on her left-it seemed there was a break in the trees up ahead. "I present to you…" Alex, Sam, and Ashley walked up to her, past the end of the tree line, and turned to look to their left. "…The Hermitage." They all gaped. Ginger smiled. They were standing next to an old wooden fence that towered over them, mostly overgrown with weeds. Beyond the fence was a small yard, also choked with untended vegetation. Amidst the green here and there were splashes of gray-an old stone walkway. At the end of the walkway sat a once beautiful house, now in shambles, but still structurally sound, preserved almost perfectly by the surrounding trees. "Four floors, counting the basement." Ginger said. "It seems that nobody knows its back here." The other three said nothing, continuing to absorb the majestic beauty of the house. It was sitting in the center of a small clearing which was only identified by the overgrown fence and the places around the house where the weeds started stretching even farther upwards, covering a good portion of the tree trunks behind them. It was a well sized house, having a porch that stretched along most of the front side of the first floor. There seemed to be a small backyard a bit farther back, where the ground started sloping downward to reveal a stone wall, presumable the base of the house, and where the basement was located. Some of the windowpanes visible in the house were still intact, seeing as the house was well sheltered by the thick trees.  
>"Is it open?" Alex asked, entranced by the house. "Can we go inside?"<br>"Yeah, can we?" Ashley asked, her pointer finger twitching with the prospect of taking beautiful pictures of the abandoned abode.  
>"Sure. There's no gate to the property, and the door isn't locked."<br>"Excellent!" Alex bounded forward and stopped in front of Ginger, where two wooden posts stood. There was a space in between the two, presumably where a gate had once been. "Well? What're you waiting for, an invitation?" He then walked through, staying out of the taller patches of weeds. Ginger and Sam followed, but Ashley stopped to snap a picture of a plaque that was placed on a piece of fence to her left. The plaque read "Hermitage". It was fairly weathered, but not so overgrown as to block out the only word on it. Then she followed the other three, camera at the ready. She shivered when she passed through the columns and into the property, as if there had been a sudden temperature change, only on a bone-chilling spiritual level.  
>"Ginger, c'mere for a second?" Ashley called from just inside the property, letting her camera drop back onto her chest. Ginger looked back, about to follow Sam and Alex onto the porch.<br>"What's up?" She said, skipping back to Ashley on the overgrown flagstones. Then she noticed Ashley had gone slightly pale. "You O.K.? What's wrong?" She ran to her, arms slightly outstretched in case she fainted.  
>"I'm not sure, really…I felt…weird. I dunno. Whatever it was, it's passing." She smiled at Ginger, who was looking concernedly at her.<br>"You sure? D'you want me to get the boys so we can head back?"  
>"Honestly, I'm fine! Besides, we've come all this way, haven't we? It'd be stupid to go back before we've even gone inside yet." She grinned. "Come on." And with that, she pulled Ginger across the weedy walkway, up the large wooden stairs, and across the creaking porch, only to stop outside the front door, which lay slightly ajar. "The guys went inside, right?"<br>"Yeah, I think." The girls looked around them, observing the beauty that nature had created from the abandoned home. "Ashley, weren't you planning on taking some pictures?" Ashley took a moment to reply, still seemingly entranced by the scene.  
>"…no. I've changed my mind. I'm only going to keep the one I took of the plaque."<br>"Why? It seems like a gorgeous place to take pictures."  
>"It is...but...see, here's the thing...if I took pictures and they got out...people would want to know where I took them. Even if I said nothing, this place would eventually be found, and people would start coming…" She trailed off, gazing at the water-stained stone wall of The Hermitage as if it were the Mona Lisa. "…you see, the word 'hermitage' stands for the home of a hermit, and 'hermit' stands for one who lives in solitude. If people discovered that this fantastic place was here, then it wouldn't be The Hermitage anymore, now would it?" She turned to smile at Ginger, who looked fascinated by Ashley's train of thought.<br>"You're right. Although, wouldn't it be cool if we fixed this place up? Not the whole thing, just the inside!" She said quickly, responding to Ashley's startled look. "So we could have a place to chill, you know. It's actually a lot better looking on the inside. It's just really cluttered with stuff."  
>"That sounds perfect!" Ashley exclaimed, clutching her camera with excitement. "The beauty within the beast! You're wonderful, you know that?"<br>"Ahaha. Of course." Ginger smiled sheepishly, then started abruptly. "Uh oh…"  
>"What's up?"<br>"This." Ginger held out her hand, which had previously been holding onto the porch railing. It was speckled with raindrops.  
>"Oh no! D'you think we can make it back to the school before it starts to rain harder?" In response, the sky let loose a deep rumble of thunder, and the rapid pitter-patter of heavily falling rain started on the roof of the veranda. "Guess not…" Ginger said, rubbing the back of her head. "Sorry. Looks like we're stuck here until the rain lets up..." A brilliant flash of lightning from the dark clouds far overhead, accompanied by a wind which blew rain under the roof of the veranda, let them know that the storm was far from over.<br>"Oh well. Hey now, at least we can start cleaning, huh?" Ashley smiled at Ginger, who was looking guilty for trapping them at The Hermitage during the storm. "Hey. Chin up. It could be worse, you know. Come on, let's get inside before we're soaked." Ashley then proceeded to pull Ginger through The Hermitage's wooden front door, which blew shut with a soft "Whump!" behind them, with a small breeze following them through the door's shattered circular window. The girls looked around, Ashley for the first time and Ginger for the sake of remembering where everything was. They were standing in the front hall of the home, which had a thin layer here and there of papers and dust, through which footprints, presumably Sam and Alex's, could be seen traversing the length of the foyer. The only light came from the windows-the overhead hall light was lopsided, and the bulb shattered. Close to the far left end of the foyer, there was a set of stairs that presumably led to the basement. Where the far left of the hall was located, there was a pair of wooden, windowless doors, tightly shut. At the far right, another set of stairs which went up for a few steps, then turned to the left, these which led to the upper floors. Two bare walls, both a dirty white, ran along either side of the girls, connecting the front door with the stairs. On the left wall, there was a wooden door to their immediate left that was shut tight. On their immediate right there was a doorless opening to what looked like an old office and, farther down the wall, another opening which seemed to lead to a grimy kitchen. Ashley took a trepidatious step forward, and was greeted with two dull bangs, one after another, and a muffled string of curses from the upper floor.  
>"What was that?" Ginger asked, worried. "Sam, Alex? What happened? Come down here!" Ginger's voice sounded eerily small in the abandoned house, yet echoed enough to bring both boys down into the foyer.<br>"We're fine, we're fine." Sam said, walking towards them. "Alex tried a door and it was locked, so he shoulder-rammed it open, but got a cut from some splintered wood."  
>"A cut?" Ashley asked worriedly.<br>"Not to worry, it's not very deep." Alex said, as he walked down the stairs towards them. "It did rip my shirt though, which is disappointing. It was one of my favorites."  
>"Let me see." Ashley said skeptically, striding across the foyer to meet Alex at the base of the stairs. She spotted the cut immediately. The part of the tight baby blue V-neck he was wearing that covered his left shoulder was torn about an inch and a half vertically, with a slight red tint around the tear that blended in with the bloody skin just under it. "Hmm…it might not look that bad now, but you should probably put some pressure on that to make sure you don't bleed out and prevent that scenario that might be running through your head."<br>"Yes, doctor." Alex smiled. "But with what?" Ashley thought for a moment, then turned to Ginger.  
>"Are there any unlocked bedrooms here?" Before Ginger could respond, Sam spoke up.<br>"The door that Alex forced led to a bedroom. Why?"  
>"We could fashion one of the bed sheets or pillowcases into a band that can be tied around his cut to stop the bleeding."<br>"Err…I don't like that idea that much." Alex said, looking uncomfortable.  
>"Why?"<br>"Well, see, the room seems to have belonged to a little girl…"  
>"And?" Alex looked at her shrewdly before continuing.<br>"Everything's pink." He said, with a small note of disgust in his voice.  
>"Oh my god." Ashley said her voice heavy with disbelief. "Are you that sexist?"<br>"What? No! I'd just prefer my bandage to be a bit darker and non-feminine." "There are some pretty dark, manly shades of pink in there." Sam laughed. "Sam! Whose side are you on, anyways?" Alex glowered at him.  
>"Come on." Ashley grabbed his good arm and led him up the stairs, despite his verbal protests, with Sam and Ginger following and chuckling quietly behind them. There was a large mound of papers in the corner at the top of the stairs, and Ashley jumped over to avoid its sprawling reach, pulling Alex with her. Alex, however, was not at the top of the stairs with her, and his converse-clad foot caught onto a step when she jumped. He fell face first with a sharp curse into the paper pile, crashing down onto his cut shoulder as he did so, which only brought out the more colorful side of his vocabulary. "Oh, no, I'm so sorry!" Ashley cried, covering her mouth with her hands. "Are you O.K.?" "Yeah…" Alex groaned, sitting up on the top step, his once clean shirt now stained various shades of yellow and brown around his left side. "…although the prospect of the pink bandage isn't looking so bad now...oh damn. My M&amp;M's got smashed." As he brushed various papers off himself, Ginger and Sam stepped over him to join Ashley in the second floor hallway, which was also strewn with what once had been sheafs of papers. "Hey, look at this..." Alex held up an old newspaper article, yellowed with age, that he had peeled off his arm.<br>"What is it?" Ginger said, leaning in to take a closer look.  
>"It's an old newspaper article. It's cut out of the original thing, so the date's unknown." He held his hand up to Ginger, expecting to be helped to his feet, but Ginger just grabbed the article and straightened up. "Thanks." Alex said sarcastically. "I hope you get a paper cut." As Sam leaned over the banister to help Alex up, Ginger and Ashley leaned their heads together and began to read, Ashley out loud.<p>

"DISAPPEARANCE OF HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER AND DAUGHTER CAUSES PANIC ON CAMPUS" Read the headline. "Franz Hopper, Science teacher at Kadic Academy, was discovered to be missing yesterday afternoon after local police conducted a search of his home in the Academy Park. His house, titled 'The Hermitage', was found to be '…ransacked, and in the worst of states…', according to an interviewed policeman who aided in the search. Hopper was reported missing by his fellow co-workers at Kadic Academy, after two weeks of unexplained absences. 'He never missed a day of work before. He wasn't answering his phone or my constant emails. I eventually went to see what was wrong, which is when I found his house, front door ajar, completely ransacked from top to bottom. I then immediately phoned the authorities.' This is the statement that Principal Jean-Pierre Delmas, head of Kadic Academy, gave when interviewed. Upon search of his home in the woods, it was found that Hopper had a previously unknown daughter, age 13. Hopper's young girl, who did not attend Kadic despite her father teaching there, has also been reported missing. Police have found no trace of either Hopper or his daughter, which leads the public to believe that the investigation into their mysterious disappearances will soon be ended. Hopper will be replaced at Kadic by Susanna Hertz, who has agreed to step down if Hopper is found and is willing to work again. Hopper seems to have no immediate family. He appears to have a wife, yet her whereabouts and identity are as of now unknown. It is doubted that his wife ever lived with him at The Hermi-"

"The article ends there…" Ginger said, looking up from the paper. "It looks ripped…"  
>"Creepy. So this house used to belong to the Science teacher at Kadic before Ms. Hertz…" Ashley said quietly. "…d'you think they were ever found?" "Considering the house looks a tornado ripped through it, no." Sam said, leaning against the stained wall with Alex.<br>"Err…not to break the wonderful atmosphere you guys have going here, but can we get a move on?" Everyone turned to look at Alex, who had a hand clamped over his shoulder. The stain of blood had spread, and when he lifted his hand up, it was painted a deep shade of red. "I think I split it open more when I fell on it..." He said dejectedly. "This shirt'll never be the same. And if you're really interested in this Hopper fellow like I am, you have plenty of time to continue your investigation after I'm wrapped up." He nodded towards a grimy window at the end of the second floor hall, through which the pouring rain could still be seen.  
>"Oh, wow, sorry! Let's go." Ashley rushed forward and helped Alex off the wall.<br>"I can walk its fine. Thank you for worrying, though." He gave Ashley a small smile, which was returned. "Naturally. Now, which room was it?" "Far left. The only one that's open." They all started walking down the hall, the floor creaking under their steps. "Has anyone noticed how quiet it is in here? I mean, you can't hear the rain or even the thunder outside." Ginger said, looking up towards where the roof was a floor above them.  
>"Ginger's right." Sam said, stopping and listening hard. "Nothing."<br>"This Franz must've been a right genius to build a house as soundproof as this." Alex commented, reaching the end of the hall and looking out the window to muse at the storm. "The wind's real violent right now-the trees are shaking something terrible-yet we can't hear a peep." Then he turned to the door on his left, which was painted a joyful red, starkly compared to the dirty white of the walls surrounding them. The frame around the doorjamb was splintered inwards, and the lock on the door itself was bent outwards, as a result of Alex's shoulder-ram. About a foot and a half above the splintered doorjamb, there was a streak of blood and a scrap of blue cloth where Alex had cut himself on an already damaged piece of the doorframe. The door had apparently rebounded off an inner wall when Alex forced it open, as the bent locking mechanism was almost touching the splintered frame. There was a large crack on the door running parallel to the blood smear on the doorframe, another result of the shoulder ram. Alex gingerly nudged the door open with his good shoulder and stepped inside, followed by Ashley, Sam, and Ginger. They were greeted by an ankle-high pile of dust right next to the door. The only light-two light bulbs, one close to the far wall, the other close to the door- were shattered. About halfway along the left wall there was a fireplace with a grate in front. Sitting on the dusty mantelpiece was an overstuffed brown teddy bear. Behind the bear, a faded drawing of a tree was lopsidedly tacked to the white-red wall. On their right there was a metal cabinet that someone had taken the right door off of. The door was propped up against the other one, and the contents of the cabinet spilled out onto the floor. Everyone walked farther into the room in order to see what kind of world the mysterious Hopper had lived in, footsteps muffled by the pink carpet, which was void of clutter in the very middle. On the left of the dismantled cabinet was a wooden desk, one of its three drawers ripped out and on the floor next to a small chair. Papers lay all around it. On the desk were more papers, a cup with writing utensils long unused, and an electric lamp that didn't respond to Sam's repeated flicking of its power switch. Above the desk was a lopsided picture frame that was stained with grime. On the wall opposite the door there was nothing except in the far right corner, where the bed was, dirty white sheets thrown back over the bottom of the bedstead. To the left of the bed was an overturned plush chair, white in color, along with the shattered remains of some toys. In-between the overturned chair and the messed-up bed was a window, panes still intact, but outside shutters hanging crookedly. Above the old bed was a lopsided bookshelf that had broken free of its left holding and tilted dangerously in that direction, books kept in place only by the book holder. To the right of the bed, on the far wall, was another window, glass panes cracked and thrown inwards, askew on their hinges, and wooden shutters bent outwards. Because of this, the rain was heard more here than anywhere else in the house. The disfigured shutters prevented rain from entering the room, but still offered a view of the now drenched garden. Under this window lay the shredded remains of some books. Tattered pink drapes on both windows fluttered in a small gust of wind that made its way into the room. When they had finished admiring the odd beauty of the place, they all walked over to the long unkempt bed, and Ashley tore a piece of the original top sheet off, on the basis that since it had been covered by the dirty white sheets, it was the cleanest. She wrapped it over the cut on Alex's shoulder, moved it under his armpit then back up to the cut, and tied a tight knot to ensure the makeshift bandage would stay until he had a chance to get to the school infirmary.  
>"Done. How does it feel?" She asked Alex.<br>"Fine. Tight. Arm killing. Blood stopping. Etcetera, including comments about the brilliant shade of pink."  
>"Wonderful." She looked down abashedly. "I'm really sorry I made it worse."<br>"Don't mention it. It's fine." Alex looked around once more. "Hold on…didn't that article say Hopper had a daughter?"  
>"Oh wow…" Ginger breathed. "This must be her room!"<br>"She must've had a real thing for the color pink." Sam commented, walking over to the wall and lightly touching the white-red wallpaper with two pink stripes, one running along where ceiling met wall, and the other at about waist height.  
>"Poor thing." Ashley said sadly. Then a small 'vvvv-vvvvb' sound filled the room, killing the mood slightly.<br>"It's my phone, sorry..." Alex said, digging in his pocket. "Unknown number...hold on a second. Hello?" Everyone turned to look at Alex, whose face had changed into one of surprise. "Caleb? What, but, how'd you...what? Slow down, I can't...oh shit, don't tell me that's now...well, we...I mean I can't be there right now...why? Err, because...I'm...in town...buying...a gift for my mom. Huh? SUSPENSION? Oh man...I'll get there on the double. Thanks for the heads-up. Right."  
>"What was that about?" Ashley said curiously.<br>"Orientation! We totally forgot about it! It's starting in five minutes, and the apparent punishment is suspension!"  
>"Ridiculous!" Sam scoffed. "No way. Detention, sure, but suspension? No way. Besides, there's no way we're going to make it back in time."<br>"Hey, look outside!" Alex had walked over to the window after hanging up and was peering through the damaged shutters. "The rain's letting up. Wanna try and make a run for it anyways?"  
>"Sounds excellent. You need Nurse Yolande as soon as possible, in any case." Ginger said, causing Ashley to look ashamed.<br>"We'd better hurry in case the lull in the storm isn't a long one." Sam said, swiftly moving out into the corridor. They all followed suit, hurrying out the cracked red door and down the hall, gingerly making their way down the stairs, then dashing across the length of the foyer to the front door. Sam turned the knob and pulled, but nothing happened. "Huh." He pulled again, using both hands. "Nothing!" He used the wall as a foothold and heaved with all his might, but the door refused to budge. "Oh no…the wood of the door and the doorframe must've absorbed the water from the storm…" Ashley said worriedly. "They both must've swollen, trapping the door! We can't get out this way until they both release all the water!" "We have to find another exit before the rain starts up again." Sam said, turning. Then he spotted the stairs leading to the basement. "Down there! Come on!" He ran to the stairs and hurriedly descended them, followed by Ashley, Ginger, and Alex. Once they reached the bottom, they found themselves in a pitch-black corridor. To the right of them, when lit up by the glow of cell phones, was an old boiler room, pipes still dripping water. To their left the corridor stretched farther down, with a rusted maze of pipes on the right wall and another farther down on the left. At the end of the corridor, a faint glow. "Let's go!" Sam, followed close by the other three, rushed down the corridor, cell phones lighting the way until they burst through a wooden door with a small circular window, where they were met with the smell of fresh rain, and a view of what looked like a small pond. "We're in the rear garden." Ginger said, looking around and pocketing her mobile. "But everything's flooded…how'll we get to the fence? This water must be at least up to our knees, considering the serious depression in the earth we saw from the path, and the water reaches around the porch!"  
>"Wait, look over there!" Ashley cried, pointing to their left.<br>"It's the backside of part of the porch." Sam said. "So?"  
>"Look closely! See those two black pyramids on top of each other next to that bush?" Everyone nodded, now seeing what Ashley was looking at. "It's a door!"<br>"Hey, not that I don't trust you or anything, but how are you sure?" Ginger asked skeptically.  
>"Well, it's slightly ajar, for one." And so it was, a crack of dimly lit hallway visible between the door and the stone porch wall.<br>"Ah…I guess it is." Ginger laughed abashedly. "Let's check it out. Better than wading through this water." Ashley, flat against the wall, crept along to the porch wall, making sure not to fall forward into the water. When she reached the porch wall she edged the odd door open with her fingers, filling the Hermitage's clearing with a loud screech. She clambered inside, and was gone to explore the newfound space that was dimly lit by a grimy light bulb. Sam, Alex, and Ginger milled around the door to the basement corridor, looking uncomfortably up at the sky, which seemed more than capable to continue the downpour. Then Ashley poked her head out from the doorway, and announced her findings.  
>"It leads to the sewers. There's a hole in the wall a bit farther down, and some light, but I don't know if we should explore the tunnels. It seems dangerous."<br>"And this house isn't?" Alex scoffed. "Let's do it."  
>"But your shoulder-"<br>"Is fine, and will hold out." With that Alex mimicked Ashley's motions, and arrived at the black door as dry as he had been. "Come on, you two, let's move it. It's starting to rain again." Ginger nodded, and slowly moved in the same fashion towards the black door as Alex and Ashley had, while raindrops started plopping down into the water once more.  
>"Hurry, before the wall becomes slicker from the rain!" Ashley cried, reaching a hand out to Ginger. Ginger grabbed it, and with a soft cry fell into the dark passageway, narrowly avoiding flattening Alex. Ashley, though, was not so lucky, and she tumbled down as well.<br>"All right Sam, now you." Alex called from the doorway.  
>"Right." Sam edged his way to the wall and started making his way to the black door. He made it to where wall met wall, and started onto the thin ledge of ground that led to the mysterious doorway. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he started to pitch forward into the dirty waters that made up the current rear of The Hermitage. Alex saw Sam slip and, seeing as how Ashley and Ginger were picking themselves up, he grabbed onto the doorframe with his right hand, swung out over the water, and with his left hand grabbed the back of Sam's shirt, halting his fall. This was not without pain, however-a dull throb started where the cut was, and he felt a trickle of something make its way out from under the bandage and slide down his arm.<br>"Wow, thanks…that was close…" Sam breathed, moccasin-clad feet finding solid ground once again, but still suspended at an awkward angle over the water. "Help me up?" "Can't." Alex grunted, feeling the trickle of something slide down to his elbow. "Bad arm."  
>"Ah, no…Ashley, Ginger, a little help here?"<br>"Why, what's…oh! Alex, what are you doing?" Ashley had gotten up from the cement floor and rushed over to Alex. "What happened?"  
>"Sam fell. I grabbed him. He's still hanging, so help would be appreciated." "Ginger, help me! Grab my waist, make sure I don't fall in. Alex, when I say so, let go of the wall and reach for my hand."<br>"Right. Please don't let us fall. As floatant as Sam is, this water is awfully dirty."  
>"I heard that." Sam called from his uncomfortable perch over the dank water.<br>"I'm ready, Ashley." Ginger said, wrapping her arms firmly around Ashley's waist and planting her feet securely on the cement floor.  
>"Ready Alex?" Ashley called. Alex's arm wavered in agreement. Or strain. Either one, Ashley called "Now!" and lunged forward to catch Alex's hand as it started to fall into the water with its owner. She felt her hand brush his, and clamped her hand shut-as did he-preventing them from falling any further. The combined weight of the two boys began dragging her towards the doorway, but Ginger played her part well and dug her feet into the floor, stopping the slide towards the outside. She heard Alex breathe a sigh of relief. "Thanks, girls."<br>"Yeah." Grunted Ashley, with the effort of holding them both up.  
>"Pull us up, quick, I can feel my sock getting wet!" Ginger heard Sam call from outside.<br>"I'm going to pull, ready? Ashley, Alex?" "Ready!" came the chorused reply. With that, Ginger began to backpedal as fast as she was able to, slowly dragging Alex back into the door.  
>"Agh…one final heave!" Alex called. "My hand's slipping, Sam might fall in!" "Go!" Ashley cried, and she and Ginger heaved back, throwing all their weight to the ground. Alex came tumbling into the small hallway, closely followed by Sam, who crashed down onto the cement with a dull thud.<br>"Eurgh…we made it…" He groaned, sitting up and leaning against the wall. A sharp crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning that illuminated the small hallway caused them all to turn their heads. The rain had started back up with an intensity that had not been seen before. Ashley struggled to her feet and reached for the door, grabbing an inside handle and swinging the door shut with another grating screech. The clang that echoed around the small space reminded them all of a jail cell, and they all shifted uncomfortably. "Whelp…" Alex muttered, getting to his feet. "Looks like we know where go now." He winced when he moved his arm, but showed no other signs that he was injured. He helped Ginger to her feet, then started walking gingerly down the stone steps that were mere inches away from where they had fallen. Sam, after being helped up by Ashley, followed, then did Ginger, with Ashley guarding the rear. Five, ten, twenty cement steps downwards and they arrived in an enormous tunnel-the sewers. The walkway on which they stepped after descending the stairs was about three to four feet wide. If one were to accidentally step off the path, a sharp vertical drop into the sewer water would soon follow. The only light came from storm drains in the ceiling farther ahead, but a larger and brighter light source was visible from farther on in the tunnel.  
>"Echh. It smells TERRIBLE in here." Ginger moaned, bringing her shirt up to cover her nose. "Let's find a way out of here, quick!"<br>"Agreed." Alex coughed. "Well, Ashley? Lead the way."  
>"Right." With that, she set out down the path that led right from where they had descended from The Hermitage. Sam followed and, after sharing a glance that said more than words, so did Ginger and Alex. The small group reached the end of the path and turned to the right, walked for a bit, turned left, and, halfway down the curving corridor, they were greeted by a downfall of water seemingly coming from the blackness above them.<br>"What is this?" Ginger asked apprehensively.  
>"Due to the direction which we've been traveling, I'm assuming we're under the park right now." Sam said. This must be that manhole cover in that small clearing right before the toolshed. See, there's the ladder, in the middle of the water." Sure enough, when Sam stretched his hand out and through the water, he met a ladder rung. "We can step around it and keep going, because there's no way we're going to be able to climb up that ladder and move the manhole cover in all this rain."<br>"The light I saw is beyond here." Ashley spoke up, pointing past the drenched park ladder.  
>"Let's go, then." Alex said, edging his way around the water coming down, and making sure not to fall into the water right below. "Careful Sam, the floor's slick here."<br>"All right, all right, just keep going." Sam scoffed. "It won't happen a second time. Although if it does, I fully expect you to save me again."  
>"Fat chance." Alex replied, having reached the other side. "C'mon guys, I can see the hole in the wall now. It's just a bit ahead, and there's light pouring out!"<br>"Excellent." Ginger groaned, starting to edge her way after Ashley, who had almost reached the other side. "It reeks in here."  
>"There's a pipe near the bottom, Ashley." Alex called back to his friend. "Try stepping over it this time."<br>"Oh, shut up!" She said hotly, now having reached the other side and started to wipe water off her camera as she walked towards Alex. "You know I feel terrible about it!"  
>"And I never said you didn't. Want a sewer hug to make it all better?"<br>"No thanks!" She laughed, temper dropping as she pushed his arms away. "You smell like garbage."  
>"Like you don't?"<br>"Of course not! I smell like a princess." "Princess of the kingdom of shitville, more like." Behind the two, Ginger giggled as she helped Sam onto the other side.  
>"Whatever. Talk about immature." She smiled. "There's the tunnel." She said, pointing to a hole in the wall a few feet ahead of Alex. "I'll go see what's up here. Back in a flash." And with that, Ashley stepped over the pipe at the bottom of the opening and around some ripped wire mesh covering the hole, and started up some dirt steps, soon lost from view.<br>"See anything?" Ginger called after her. "There's lights strung all along this tunnel…" Ashley's voice echoed back. "It's made entirely of dirt, and curves to the left a bit. There are some pipes running close to the ceiling…wait, there's a door. Bright red. I'll go through it, stay there." The sound of a door opening echoed down the passageway, leaving the three standing there sweating in the humid tunnel.  
>"Gah. Not only do we smell, but we're sweaty as well." Alex complained, wiping sweat off his brow.<br>"Although it is neat that these tunnels connect to different places. Easy access for us to beat curfew, eh?"  
>"Oh no, curfew!" Ginger gasped. "What time is it?" Alex fished in his pocket and pulled out his phone.<br>"Calm down! It's only 5:17. We still have a few more hours, although orientation's a lost cause by now."  
>"Thank goodness."<br>"Guys, are you still there?" Ashley's voice echoed down the dirt corridor. "Yeah, where else would we be?" Sam replied.  
>"Stay there, don't come up! I'll be down in a second." The sound of Ashley closing the red door at the top of the stairs echoed throughout the sewers, and a moment later Ashley appeared. She came running down the earthen staircase and leapt the pipe, gracefully soaring through the air before landing hard on the slick floor and slipping, falling hard onto her back. "Ohoho, ow, wow, ouch…" She groaned, winded, clutching her back as she writhed on the cement floor. "Gah…why did I even do that?" She struggled to sit up, aided by Ginger. Then she noticed her camera. "No! My camera!"<br>"What's wrong with it?" Alex asked, leaning down and peering over her now grimy shoulder. "The lens cap flew off and the lens got cracked…" She said dejectedly. "And the shutter button's bent…it won't be able to take pictures until I get it fixed, and that's a lot of money…" She sadly got up, popped her back as if she hadn't just crashed down on it, and lovingly caressed the bent shutter button on her camera. "This was the first camera I ever got…" Behind her back, Ginger, Alex, and Sam all shared mutual looks of worriedness for their friend.  
>"Hey, don't worry, it's fine! We'll all chip in to help and get it fixed." Sam said, clapping a hand on her shoulder. "You'd do that for me?" Ashley said, overwhelmed. "It's too much money, I couldn't ask you all to do that."<br>"Then don't ask! We'll do it anyways!" Alex said, ruffling her hair.  
>"That's what friends are for!" Ginger said, smiling at Ashley, who brightened. "Aha…thanks guys. You're the greatest, you know?"<br>"Yes. Yes I do." Alex said, grinning. "Now, what was at the end of the tunnel? Is it an exit?"  
>"Oh, you guys won't believe what was at the end. It leads to the gym!"<br>"What?" Sam said, looking stunned. "Yeah! It came out into the gym's boiler room. Apparently nobody ever goes in there, so it's fairly safe. From there, I went out into the south hallway, which leads to the locker rooms and the gym."  
>"Well let's go then!" Ginger said, walking towards the tunnel.<br>"Hold on, wait!" Ashley grabbed her shoulder to keep her from walking any farther. "I peeked outside, and the guitar club, because there actually is one, is practicing on the steps right next to the door! It looked like they were just getting started, too…and Jim is holding some kind of martial arts class in the gym itself, so both exits are blocked…" "Great. Looks like we're in for a long wait." Ginger groaned, sitting down on the pipe in front of the tunnel.  
>"Who said anything about waiting?" Alex said, walking forward a bit to try and see farther into the gloom. "There's more light down there, possibly another way out!"<br>"Better than explaining to Caleb or Jimbo why we look like we just crawled out of a sewer." Sam said, moving towards Alex and clapping him on the back. "I'm all for some exploration. Coming, ladies?" With that, the boys started to walk down the tunnel. Ashley and Ginger shrugged, and went after them. The group walked down the tunnel for a bit, noticing that after it had continuously curved to the left since the park ladder, it started to straighten out. Then Alex stopped, and held out his hand next to him to stop the others as well. "I hear something." Ginger nodded in agreement.  
>"Me too. What is it?" From the tunnel in front of them came a low rumble, then from the right side, a brilliant flash of light.<br>"It's the storm!" Ashley said. "There must be an opening down there!" With that she took off running down the corridor, leaving the others to hurriedly follow her.  
>"Hold on, Ashley, wait! Careful, the walkway ends there!" Alex shouted to her, having seen the walkway turn sharply to the right in the lightning flash. "Slow down!" Ashley paid no heed to him, continuing to rush down the tunnel.<br>"Don't worry, there's a board stretched across the gap!" Her voice called back. "It's safe to cross!" And so there was. When Alex, Sam, and Ginger reached the break in the tunnel, they found Ashley waving to them from the other side of the sewer canal. "There's a ladder over here!" She called, pointing to her left. "And it's dry!" They all looked to where she was pointing and, sure enough, next to an enormous grate that stretched from water to ceiling, was a metal ladder, leading up into the gloom.  
>"It looks like we're under a bridge…" Sam muttered, squinting at the rainy world beyond the grate. "Oh, hey, I know what this is. We're right next to some old factory. I passed it when I was riding the bus to Kadic from the airport. The factory itself is on an island of sorts that's surrounded by water-which would explain why the water flow is so increased through that grate-and it's connected to the mainland by a bridge, the one we're under."<br>"We still have a few hours until we're due back at the school." Alex said, checking his phone again. "I'm all for some more exploration of abandoned and potentially dangerous buildings. And Ashley, before you say anything, my shoulder is FINE." Alex called across the canal, seeing his friend open her mouth in protest. "I'm coming over. We should all go one at a time, in case the board isn't very sturdy." He stepped forward onto the narrow plank and started to creep forward, trying to not fall into the murky waters below. The board creaked ominously, but held steady for him to reach the other side.  
>"Go ahead, Ginger." Sam said, pushing her towards the canal. "Ladies first." "What a wimp." She scoffed, and nimbly dashed across the board, barely making a sound. "You haven't changed a bit, Sam," Ginger called across the canal to Sam, now alone on the other side. "Polite only when it's convenient for you. And I think everyone here knows what I mean by convenient." The girls giggled, and even Alex spared himself a chuckle. "What're you waiting for, then? Get a move on!"<br>"I'm coming, hold your horses…or wolves, or whatever!" Sam grumbled, slowly shuffling across the thin plank of wood that creaked under his 'very flotant' girth. Despite the dangerous sounds coming from the wood, Sam made it across, and they all started for the ladder.  
>"It looks really tall." Ashley said, walking to the base and peering up, the shaft momentarily illuminated by a flash of lightning from a few feet away. "Will you be O.K. if we go up, Alex?"<br>"Bah. I once hiked through Ecuador with a broken leg. I can handle this." Alex said boastfully, wincing as he grabbed the ladder a few rungs up and placed a foot on the bottom rung.  
>"Oh really? You hiked through Ecuador with a broken leg, now did you?" Ginger asked skeptically.<br>"Sure, whatever gets us going." With that, Alex started up the ladder with a wavering arm and steely determination, followed by Sam, who pulled Ashley after him, wanting to be away from Ginger's infamous 'kicking leg'.  
>"What happened to ladies first, eh?" Ginger grumbled as she started on the ladder behind everyone else.<br>"It died, along with most of the nerves in my right leg back in 7th grade." Sam called down to her. They all climbed in silence for a few seconds, the only sounds coming from the storm that was raging just a few feet away. Then Alex called down to them.  
>"Hold up."<br>"What's wrong?" Ginger called up as the ascent ground to a halt. The sound of clanging metal caught everyone's attention.  
>"There's a hatch up here, and I'm having trouble opening it..." Alex grunted, trying to figure out how to open the hatch above him. Then, while adjusting his position on the ladder, his foot slipped and he fell down a rung, hitting Sam in the face with his faded black converse.<br>"Gah! What was that?" Sam shouted up at him, wiping his face clean with one arm, and holding onto the ladder with the other. "I just got a face full of sewer shoe down here!" Ashley giggled, and Ginger did nothing to mask the peal of laughter that bounced around the tunnel.  
>"Sorry, I slipped!" Alex said, regaining his balance. "Hey, wait a second..." He could be heard straining with the hatch, and finally, with a tremendous scraping of metal on cement, the hatch slid open to reveal a sky like stone, but also letting water start to drip down the ladder. "When I slipped, I accidentally tugged on it, and it moved. It slides to the right, not up!"<br>"Fantastic! Utterly amazing!" Sam said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "How's about moving, huh? We're getting all wet down here!"  
>"Right, sorry." Alex clambered up and out of the ladder shaft, then bent down to help Sam. "Geez, ever hear of a gym? I think I just split my cut open more..." He grumbled, as Sam emerged onto the rainy bridge that connected the abandoned factory to the town.<br>"Shut up. I'm big boned."  
>"My ass."<br>"Is there a door? Do we have to break in?" Ashley asked as she emerged from the hatch.  
>"Mmm...Nope." Alex said, squinting through the rain at the factory entrance. "Just a hole."<br>"Good. We wouldn't want you to break another leg or something." Ginger smirked as she appeared right after Ashley.  
>"Whatever. Should we close that?" Alex motioned to the hatch they had climbed through as he spoke.<br>"Nah. Leave it, in case we need to make a quick escape." Sam said, already starting to walk towards the factory.  
>"This place is huge." Ashley commented as she walked, gazing down at the wet factory walls that stretched for a long way on either side of the bridge. "I wonder what used to be made here?"<br>"The only thing I'm wondering is why you guys're walking!" Ginger called as she ran past her and Alex, already catching up to Sam who was walking into the dry interior of the factory. "It's pouring out here!"  
>"She's got a point." Alex grinned at her, then sped off through the rain, leaving Ashley to start running behind him, camera thudding against her chest.<br>"It seems the rounded tip of the factory is where the actual stuff is..." Sam was saying to Alex and Ginger as she slowed to a stop just inside the factory. "That's down that way." He pointed to his right, where large, rusted machines could be seen through the gloom. "Down to our left is just this huge, empty space." He pointed the opposite way, where nothing was seen except for the enormous hallway that stretched to their left below them.  
>"Wow, this place is huge!" Ashley gasped, peering through the viewfinder on her camera.<br>"I thought your camera couldn't take pictures?" Ginger asked, poking her on the shoulder.  
>"It can't. That doesn't mean the viewfinder doesn't work!" She continued to gaze around the factory, camera glued to her eye.<br>"Wha'dyou see?" Sam asked, trying to discern shapes from blobs in the rainy darkness of the factory interior.  
>"Well, right now we're standing on a platform high above the factory floor, so watch your step, because there are no guardrails anywhere. There are some stairs close in front of us, but they're damaged-they stop after three or four steps down. There are some ropes, though, so we could theoretically slide down there, but because of Alex's shoulder, we'll have to find another way down."<br>"Sorry." Alex chuckled, rubbing his arm. "But why is it so important we go down there?"  
>"Because there's an elevator!" Ashley said, excited. "Down there, right below us."<br>"Excellent." Sam said, grinning. "This is almost better than The Hermitage."  
>"Mmm. Anyways, There's another walkway like this one on the opposite wall, but it'll be useless to walk over there, or to even walk down this one. They don't connect, and there's nothing at the ends. Same goes for that huge hall down there. Nothing at the left end, but it looks like there's a hallway down at the right end. Up here, to our right, there's a big room with a bunch of rusted stuff, machinery, I guess...and at the end of that, there's a door." She put the camera down and turned to her friends. "Shall we?"<br>"Of course, mademoiselle." Alex bowed, and offered her his arm.  
>"No, not you. You get to light the way with your phone." She giggled at the look on his face. "You do have a light on it, after all."<br>"Ah, sure, make the cripple do all the work." He grumbled, taking his phone out of his pocket and turning the light on.  
>"Oh, now, that's much better!" Ginger said. "We can see where we're going now!"<br>"Speaking of watching your step, Sam, I'd watch yours." Alex said, waving his phone towards Sam, revealing that Sam was standing too close to the edge for comfort.  
>"Woooah...thanks, man..." Sam said, quickly stepping back from the precipice. "Any farther and youd've become part of the factory floor." Alex chuckled. "Let's get moving. There's got to be another way down to the elevator through here somewhere." Alex started to walk towards the mounds of rusted machinery and, after a strong wind blew through the factory entrance and soaked them even more with rain, the others hurriedly followed.<br>"Wow...this is creepy...it's like walking through a city that's been burned to the ground." Ashley breathed, obviously quite awed by the rusting heaps of machinery that loomed over them on all sides as they walked through the large room. They sound of the rain falling on the roof was greatly amplified in the large room, adding more to the "cr

epy" factor that Ashley seemed to be so entranced with. Suddenly something clanged against the cement floor in front of them, the noise reverberating around them, causing Ginger to cry out in fright, which only added to the tumult of noise that surrounded them. When the echoes of the sounds finally died down, Alex turned back to his friends.  
>"Sorry. I accidentally kicked a piece of metal."<br>"Oh, you jerk!" Ginger fumed, striding angrily over to him and giving him a sharp kick to the leg which even caused Sam and Ashley to cringe.  
>"OUCH!" Alex's hands jerked down to nurse his injured leg, causing his phone-and the group's main light source-to tumble to the uneven cement floor, where a small crack was heard as they were plunged into almost total darkness.<br>"Oh no..." Ashley had bent down to retrieve the phone from the concrete floor. "It fell on some uneven concrete, and the light shattered...I'm sorry, Alex."  
>"Gah...Ginger..." Alex took the damaged phone from Ashley in the dim light and felt around the back. "Yeah, the back's slightly dented around where the bulb was. There goes our light source..."<br>"I'm sorry, guys, I didn't mean it..." Ginger mumbled, hanging her head.  
>"Its fine, whatever." Alex sighed, feeling for her in the dim light and patting her shoulder as he pocketed the damaged phone. "It's just not my day. Lost a flash, gained a bruise. Should we head back?"<br>"No, I can see the door about twenty feet in front of us." Sam said, pointing. "Besides, there's enough light in here to make our way around. And the lightning helps." He added, as a flash of lightning shone through the ceiling-high windows above them and briefly lit up the room. "Come on." They all started moving again, but this time slowly and with more caution as to not run into anything in the rainy gloom. After a few minutes of feeling their way through the murky stacks of rusted machines, Ashley spoke up.  
>"How far away is the door now?"<br>"About...oof! Zero feet in front of my face." Alex called back, voice muffled by the door he had just run into. "I can't find a doorknob...oh, wait, here it is. Step back, it swings outwards." A light clicking noise was heard from Alex turning the knob as everyone stepped back, then the door swung open. Everyone peered into the room, which was slightly lit by some windows that were visible from another doorway to their right.  
>"Hey, I might be hallucinating from hunger or something, but I see a red light over there. Or is that just me?" Sam said cautiously, pointing to the top of an old desk to their left, where a small red light could be seen slowly blinking on and off.<br>"Err...that's not just you, Sam..." Ashley said, advancing into the room and slowly approaching the desk. "There's a whole control panel here. This light's a button...it's the only one that's blinking though. Should I push it?" She asked, turning back to her friends, who were still standing just inside the doorway.  
>"I don't know..." Alex said, frowning in the gloom. "It could be a power switch for something we don't know about."<br>"Or, better yet, it could be a power switch for the lights in here!" Sam said. "I say push it."  
>"I'm with Sam. The worst that can happen here is that we turn the machines back on, and that doesn't really affect us, now does it?" Ginger said, nodding her head at Alex.<br>"Well...I'm still trepidatious about this. But whatever. Press the button, then." Alex sighed. Everyone crowded around the control panel on the old desk, waiting for Ashley to bring her hovering finger down on the flashing red button.  
>"Well? Go on then." Sam said, nudging her in the side. Ashley's finger wavered, then came down on the button. A click was heard, and the button turned solid red-but nothing happened.<br>"Really? Now that's lame." Sam sighed. "A whole control panel full of buttons and the only one that happens to be flashing is the one that does nothing."  
>"Well, shall we continue exploring then?" Alex said, turning and walking to the wall of blank monitors behind the desk. "This must be the control room for the whole factory. You must've been able to see everything from in here." He stared intently at a blank screen, looking at his own grimy, slightly warped reflection. Suddenly it vanished, and was replaced by a black-and-white image of a large room with conveyer belts and small machines. "Uh...what..." Ginger turned her head.<br>"What's up?" Farther down the wall, another dusty monitor flickered to life, showing a slightly rolling image of the entrance to the factory, where black and white raindrops still splattered. "Uh, guys, it looks like something's happening after all..."  
>"Really? Terrific, what?" Sam said, turning, along with Ashley. Another monitor, this time one closer to the ceiling, slowly came back to life, this one showing a grainy image of a small room with what looked like the inside of the elevator, which seemed to be lit by a small light.<br>"Oh...!" Ashley gasped, taking a step forward. "It's waking up!" Slowly at first, then faster and faster, monitors all over the wall, save for the ones that were shattered, came back to life, one showing the long entrance hallway, another showing a small room with two circles in the floor, and yet another showing a small staircase, when suddenly a loud beep from behind them caused them all to jump and tear their eyes away from the wall of the factory's and place them back on the control panel where all sorts of lights had started to blink frantically, most of them red but starting to turn green, lighting up the room like some sort of twisted Christmas party, while, far below them, a dull throb started somewhere in the bowels of the factory.  
>"Look! Sam shouted, pointing out the open doorway they had just come through. Everyone ran out the door and looked around, and saw dusty lights flicker to life all along the ceiling, saw the room become brightly illuminated, saw the machines start to come back to life. With horrible screeching noises that echoed all around and caused them to cover their ears, the huge, rusted hulks started moving along guidelines fashioned into the ceiling.<br>"We have to shut it down!" Ginger screamed, in order to be heard above the terrible noises of the machines. "We're going to be found! It's too loud, someone's going to come and find us!"  
>"Back into the control room!" Sam yelled, running back into the room and over to the control panel, which was now a solid mass of green lights.<br>"What do I do?"  
>"The buttons are labeled!" Alex shouted in his ear, the noises from the machine room growing ever louder. "Look for one that says something about the machines!" Everyone frantically scanned the board, looking for a way to stop the rusted mechanical laborers.<br>"There!" Ashley shouted, pointing to a button close to the right side of the board. "I've got it!" She jammed her finger down onto a button labeled 'Emerg_Shutoff 1f: Big Mchn Room'. The button immediately turned red, along with several other buttons on the far left side of the board. The sounds of grinding and clanking replaced the screeching coming from the other room, and the cacophony of noises immediately started dying down.  
>"You did it!" Ginger cried in relief from the doorway. "The machines've stopped!"<br>"If they're stopped, then why do I still hear them?" Alex mused, scanning the control board. "Ah, I see..." He then started pressing buttons on the right side of the board, which was labeled 'Emergency Shutoff Panel'.  
>"What're you doing?" Ashley asked, leaning over his shoulder as button after button on both sides of the board turned red.<br>"Turning off everything we don't need on, such as the machines and conveyer belts downstairs that are still causing an uproar, and lights around the entrance...there! That should do it." Alex straightened up and dusted his hands off as the final buttons on the board went red. Barely any of the board was green now, except for buttons such as 'South Corridor Lights' and 'Security Cameras, b2f'.  
>"Oh, that's much better!" Ginger sighed, relishing the silence that enveloped them once more. "<br>"I left most of the lights on, except for the ones around the entrance so we don't attract attention... Alex explained to whoever was listening. "...turned off all machines, restored power to the elevator, kept the cameras..." He waved to the wall behind him as he talked, where the security monitors still shone. "...turned off some electronic locks, left the turbines going, obviously, and restored power to the floors below ground level, because apparently there are three of 'em." Sam walked over to Alex and patted him on the back as he finished talking.  
>"Excellent job, amigo. I don't suppose this here board told you to where to head next, by chance?"<br>"Actually, it did." Alex strode over to the door next to the one that led back into the now thankfully quiet big machine room, which lay ajar and led to the left, along the factory's rounded tip. "We follow this passageway until we come to some stairs. From there, it's a direct shot to the main hall and the elevator."  
>"Oh. Well, this sounds simple enough. Shall we?" Sam said as he walked through the narrow opening. "Oh, the view from these windows is spectacular." His voice drifted back into the room, causing Ashley to cringe and instinctively grip her unworking camera. "You can see all across the water from here." Ashley sighed, and followed him through the door, saying: "Oh Sam, must you?"<br>"All right, people, down the stairs." Alex moved into the small corridor illuminated by the dim light from outside, and started shepherding Sam and Ashley down a set of stone steps, followed by Ginger, who swung the door to the Control Room shut behind them.  
>"In case someone comes looking for us while we're down here, we'll hear them." She replied to an inquisitive gaze that Alex threw over his shoulder as he descended the stairs.<br>"Oh!" Ashley softly cried, having reached the bottom, closely followed by Sam, who asked what was wrong. "These pipes above us leaked on me, nothing more." She said, pointing to the pipes that ran along the ceiling above them. "So we just follow this corridor, Alex?"  
>"Yeah. Just follow the water stained path and you'll be all right, Dorothy."<br>"Hey, shut up!" She shot back with a small smile, starting to walk down the dimly lit hall. "I know where you live."  
>"Because that doesn't sound sketchy." He laughed, the noise bouncing around the windowless corridor, accompanied by a deep rumble of thunder. The foursome walked down the gloomy hall, led only by the way the walls turned, which happened to be left, twice. At the end of the two left turns lay an enormous catwalk that stretched across the length of a cavernous room filled with all sorts of conveyer belts and machinery that had thankfully stopped moving.<br>"Over there!" Ginger said, pointing to the far end of the catwalk. "Another hallway."  
>"If I'm right, that's the hallway Ashley saw from the entrance. That's the one that'll take us out to the main hallway, and the elevator." Sam said, tapping his shoe against one of the metal floor panels of the catwalk.<br>"So you're expecting us to walk across a possibly dangerous catwalk that's a whole lot of feet above pointy, sharp machines just on the basis that you think you might be right? Which being right, might I add, is not one of your strong points."  
>"Yes. Yes I am. Now shut up and walk. Ladies first."<br>"See what I mean?" Ginger huffed, stepping out onto the catwalk. "Only polite...and semi, at that, when he needs to be."  
>"I'll go next." Ashley volunteered, scootching in front of Sam. "To prevent any friendly quarrels high above deadly pointy things."<br>"Good idea." Sam said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Go on, scoot." Ashley gingerly walked out onto the catwalk and tried to catch up to Ginger unsuccessfully, who by then was leaping her way from panel to panel.  
>"Go ahead, then." Sam motioned to Alex. "I'll bring up the rear. Never have an injured bouncer, you know."<br>"And that relates how?" Alex laughed, running to catch up with Ashley. "Sure is a solid catwalk, huh?" He said when he reached her, about halfway across.  
>"Yeah. Haven't felt it budge an inch...yet." The last part she threw back over her shoulder at Sam, who was seemingly having a staring contest with the floor.<br>"Big boned, dammit."  
>"So is it a family thing? The big bones." A smile from everyone lightened the mood considerably.<br>"I'm not actually that big, you know. It just looks that way because I'm tall." Sam called, stopping and lifting up his green polo shirt. "Just a little chunky above the waist, see?" He jiggled his chub, which brought tears of hilarity to everyone's eyes.  
>"It looks like a log!" Ginger giggled, having reached the other side."<br>"Feeling a bit bottom-heavy today, my friend?" Alex laughed, trying not to bump into Ashley who, just ahead, has chuckling considerably.  
>"Whatever. Just get going, skinny bitch." Sam grinned, pulling down his shirt and starting to move again.<br>"Better looking skinny than looking like a bowling pin." Alex guffawed, stepping onto the cement floor at the end of the catwalk. "Say, speaking of bowling pins, you think the Academy's got a bowling league? I'm sure new bouncers would be appreciated there...I've heard those things can get ugly." He winked and extended a hand to Sam, who had reached the end of the catwalk with a grin.  
>"They would love me, I'm sure."<br>"Now that we're all here, what say we get going?" Ginger said, turning and walking down the hallway to conceal her smile at the boys' assumed idiocy. Ashley, Alex, and Sam hurried after her, passing a blue door halfway down the left wall as they did so. "Eh, Ashley, where did you say the elevator was?" Ginger called from the main hallway. "I can't see it, even with the lights on!"  
>"It's right over there!" Ashley called, running into the hall with the boys on her tail. "Or, it was..." They stopped by Ginger, who was standing in front of where the elevator had been seen from the entrance. All there was now was an empty elevator shaft leading into the darkness.<br>"Are you sure there even was an elevator here?" Sam asked skeptically, peering down into the darkness just a few feet in front of them.  
>"Yes, I'm sure. it was sitting right here!"<br>"I back Ashley up." Alex said. "On the wall of monitors, one of the cameras clearly showed the inside of an elevator."  
>"Then where is it?" Ginger asked glumly. "Don't tell me we came all this way for nothing!"<br>"Have we tried the call button yet?" Sam asked, moving over to the right side of the elevator shaft. "It's right here." He motioned to a red button to his right, about chest height.  
>"Oh! No. Press it." Sam did so, and a deep clunking was heard, but the elevator remained deep down in the shaft.<br>"Hmmm..." Alex mused, striding back and forth. "It's possible that when the power was restored, the elevator moved automatically to a predetermined location, and stayed there...but it's odd...it shouldn't do that, not unless someone programmed it to from an access terminal, but not the one upstairs. It's too old to be able to do that."  
>"There's a ladder here..." Ashley said, nudging her foot at the edge of the shaft, where some rungs embedded into the cement wall could be seen descending into the darkness.<br>"Not a good idea. We don't know how far down the shaft even goes, or if the rungs themselves're even stable anymore."  
>"There's got to be another way down, though. Like an emergency corridor, or something, in case the power failed and the elevator stopped working."<br>"We did pass that blue door on our way in here from the catwalk." Ginger said, looking back at the dimly lit hallway from which they had come.  
>"That's got to be it." Sam said, looking around. "There's nothing else here, and we didn't pass any other doors on our way down here, not even a bathroom."<br>"Right, let's check it out." Everyone strode across the space between the elevator shaft and the hallway. "The door's right there." Ginger pointed down the hall, to the wall on their right. Everyone gathered around the strangely colored door as she tried the handle.  
>"Locked!" Sam mused.<br>"Don't try to ram this one, Alex." Ashley said warningly. "It's solid steel." She rapped her knuckles on the door to prove her point, producing a hollow echoing.  
>"Right...at least we know there's something on the other side." Alex said sheepishly.<br>"I've got this." Sam said, kneeling down and pulling a hairpin and some kind of tool out of his pocket. "Gimmie a second."  
>"You're kidding!" Alex exclaimed furiously as Sam began to pick the lock. "You couldnt've done this back at The Hermitage?"<br>"You didn't give me a chance to!" Sam shot a grin over his shoulder, then went back to work. A few seconds later a slight grating sound was heard, and Sam stood up. "It's done. Try now." Ginger did so, and the handle moved.  
>"Well whatd'you know! You've found something you're good at." Ginger chuckled, pushing the door open.<br>"Shut up." Sam smiled, pocketing his tools. "Hey, that door's been oiled." He said, looking up. "It didn't make a sound when you opened it."  
>"He's right." Ashley said, peering over Ginger's shoulder to try and see down what could be identified as stone steps. "Which is weird, because this factory has seemed to be old in every other respect."<br>"Let's just go, shall we?" Alex said disgruntledly, moving to the front and starting down the stairs. Sam shrugged, and went after him, turning right farther down the stairs. Ashley and Ginger followed, and at the bottom of the stairs behind the blue door, found themselves in an enormous room, not very tall, but extremely wide.  
>"It's the turbines room." Alex called to them, halfway across the room to the far wall. "The turbines are to your right. Stay away, the steam's hot." The girls looked to their right, and behind a curtain of steam sat a generator, turbines pumping furiously for the first time in years.<br>"But why the huge room? This thing barely takes up a third of the space in here." Ginger asked.  
>"It needs space so the heat can expand and it can cool off." Alex's voice floated back to them through the murky room.<br>"Where are you going?" Ashley called after him, starting to run towards the far wall with Ginger. "And where's Sam?"  
>"Over here. He saw a light, or something. I don't know."<br>"Oh yeah, right there!" Ginger exclaimed, pointing to a small hole in the far wall, through which dim light glowed. The girls reached Alex, and they all crowded around the small doorway. Before their eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, Sam popped up from a small ladder and blocked their view of the room.  
>"Get your asses down here!" He hissed excitedly. "You will not BELEIVE what I found!"<br>"Right, then let us down there."  
>"O.K., just climb down!"<br>Sam descended back down into the room, unblocking the view. They gasped.  
>"Let me down there!" Alex shouted excitedly, moving down the ladder as fast as his arm would let him.<br>"This is crazy..." Ginger muttered, following him.  
>"Why is this here? It's so out of place..." Ashley mused, following Ginger. When they reached the bottom, silence followed. None of them had seen such a sight before in their lives. The room, small and square in size, had thick masses of cables coming from the corners of the room and disappearing into the floor. Dim light came from the center of the room, where an astounding structure was located. The first thing that stood out the most because it was closest to them was a large, round pedestal-like object. White in color, it seemed to be wide enough to curl up comfortably on. Above it on the ceiling, which was nothing but a mass of wires and pipes, was an odd device that was enclosed in a sort of roll cage with a hole the size of a workout ball on the bottom, pointed at the white object below it. On the left of it, a computer terminal like no other-one large main screen, with two other screens branching off on either side, and another above the main one. It rested on a large stand that, instead of being anchored to the floor, rose up into the ceiling, wires showing wherever there was a panel missing. A comfortable-looking chair sat in front of the terminal, positioned on a rail that was adjusted into the floor. The rail ran all the way around the strange machine, seeming to indicate that the chair moved.<br>"This is ludicrous..." Alex breathed, walking to the terminal. His footsteps clanked on the metal floor. "What is this?"  
>"It doesn't work." Sam spoke up as Alex situated himself in the high-backed chair and tried some keys. "Neither does the elevator, although I think the two are unrelated." He walked over to the elevator door built into the wall to the left of the terminal and pressed the call button several times to prove his point.<br>"That means this must run on an alternate power source, possibly farther downstairs..." Alex muttered, still typing commands into the unresponsive terminal.  
>"Hey, you know what this reminds me of?" Ashley said, striding over to the white object to the right of the terminal, and lightly running her fingers along the glass top. "One of those holomaps. You know, like in Star Wars."<br>"You're right..." Ginger called from over by the ladder. "Now com'ere and tell me if what's down here reminds you  
>of something from a horror movie..." With that, she climbed down the rest of the ladder which had been hidden from them under a hatch which Ginger had slid open, and descended to the floor below them.<br>"A way down, excellent!" Alex leapt out of the chair and bounded over to the ladder, hurriedly followed by Ashley and Sam. This ladder, much longer than the one that led to the turbines room, led down into a room bathed with seemingly golden light.  
>"My god, it's like something from Saw..." Sam said, shuddering as he reached the bottom. Three immense metal columns arranged in a triangular formation with thick masses of wires leading out the back and top of each one, stood in the room, towering over them. Each one had what looked like a sliding door in the front. The doors, which weren't see through, looked onto a small hatch in the middle of all three columns. On the far wall from the ladder, an elevator door which nobody bothered trying.<br>"They look like coffins..." Ginger said in a hushed voice, stepping over the mass of cables to stand in the middle of the three machines.  
>"Yeah." Alex said dryly, from in front of one of the columns. "Giant, metal, hollow coffins."<br>"Hollow?" Ashley asked, walking over to Alex.  
>"Yeah, see?" He knocked on the door of one, producing a hollow echo.<br>"Weird."  
>"Try opening it." Sam grunted, from his perch above the hatch in the middle of the room, trying to turn the wheel on top to open the hatch. Alex did so, and after a few seconds of straining, gave up.<br>"There's no way. Not even with a good shoulder." He grimaced, moving his arm slightly. "It's shut tight. They must run on that alternate power source. But where could it be?"  
>"Down here, possibly?" Sam stood up, having opened the hatch. Everyone crowded around and peered down the hole. A glittering something could be seen at the bottom, amidst a white room full of more wires. "You did say there were three floors below ground level. That's the last one."<br>"So...whatever that is, it's what powers these things and the computer upstairs?" Ginger asked, nervously peering down into the hole.  
>"Must be." Alex sighed. "But how're we going to get down there?"<br>"With that." Ashley pointed to an automized pulley complete with guideline and harness located under the dome of the hatch.  
>"I'll go." Sam volunteered, reaching for the harness.<br>"You'll do no such thing." Ginger said, slapping his hand away. "You're much too big."  
>"Does that mean you volunteer yourself?" Sam said with a slight grin. "Gotten over your vertigo, have you?"<br>"Err...not exactly..." Ginger said haltingly, shifting away from the hole. "Alex?"  
>"Can't. That harness reaches around the shoulders, and I've got an injured one."<br>"Oh, SUPER." Ashley sighed, reaching for the harness. "Looks like I'm up."  
>"That's my girl. Hand me your camera, you'll want to be as light as possible in case this pulley is too old."<br>"Are you calling me fat?" Ashley said incredulously, handing her camera to Alex and slipping into the harness.  
>"Call you fat? Hah. It's like calling myself Chinese."<br>"Good. You remember the last time someone called me fat."  
>"Yes I do. Poor Jake, he was never the same again. Let me help you in there."<br>"I've got it, I've got it." Ashley clambered into the hole, and was left hanging by her fingertips from the edge of the hatch, guideline dangling uselessly below her.  
>"Sam, tighten it so she doesn't fall!"<br>"Right." Sam flicked a small switch on the pulley and the guideline retreated, leaving a taught line. "Ashley, you can let go now." She did so, and fell back against the side of the hatch with an echoing thud.  
>"Oops. Should've probably helped you out there." Alex chuckled.<br>"Yeah! Wow, this is weird. Just dangling, I mean. Lower me down there already, this is creepy. I feel like I'm being hanged."  
>"Right." Sam flicked another small switch, and the pulley began letting out line, lowering Ashley into the room.<br>"Wha'dyou see?" Ginger called nervously, peering into the hatch after Ashley.  
>"Uh...well, the hatch wasn't very long; I'm already in the room..." Her voice floated back to them above the whirring of the pulley. "It's all white, or some form of see through material, and there are wires everywhere...oh, stop, stop the pulley, something's happening!"<br>"Stop the pulley, Sam!" Ginger cried.  
>"All right, there!" Sam said, flicking a third switch, causing the pulley to stop moving completely.<br>"Ashley, what's going on?" Alex nervously called down after her.  
>"Something came up from the floor!" She shouted, causing the three others to exchange looks of confusion. "It's like a tall cylinder mounted on a large pedestal...it's black with golden lines all over..."<br>"What? No..." Alex looked stunned. "How close are you?"  
>"About six or seven feet off the floor, two feet away from this thing."<br>"Look on the cylinder part. What do you see?"  
>"Golden lines, kind of like the ones you would see on a computer or something...there are wires under them, that much's visible. Why?"<br>"Uh...no reason, yet. Is there a power switch somewhere?" Silence for a few seconds, then Ashley's voice came back.  
>"I think I see something on the side of the base over by the elevator door. Lower me down all the way so I can see."<br>"Lowering." Sam flicked the second switch again, and after a few seconds, the pulley stopped automatically, letting them know Ashley was safe on the floor.  
>"I'm stepping out of the harness. I'll go take a closer look at this thing." She called back, footsteps clanking on the floor. "There's a sort of insignia on here, on the part over by the elevator door." Her voice called back a few seconds later. "It looks sort of like an eye, made up of a roundabout in the center that's besieged by two circles." The three far above her exchanged confused looks, then continued listening. "There're four little tabs on the outermost circle, a longer one at the top, and three smaller ones at the bottom, sort of like eyelashes...oh, it opened!"<br>"What?" Sam called down. "What opened?"  
>"The insignia!" Ashley called back. I pressed a small button, and it split, like a little door! Half slid up and half slid down, and a switch folded out!"<br>"Pull it!" Alex shouted excitedly. "Pull it, and turn this thing on!"  
>"Er...O.K...here goes nothing!" Ashley, far below them, reached out, grabbed the switch that was out of their vision, and pulled. Immediately the whole structure glowed golden, light coming out of the lines on the sides. "Pull me up, pull me up!" Ashley shouted, tugging on the rope. "I'm in the harness, pull me up!"<br>"Pulling!" Sam shouted over a loud whirring that started from all three of the columns that surrounded them. The switch was flicked, and in a matter of seconds Ashley was dragging herself onto the cold metal floor.  
>"What's going on?" She cried, struggling out of the harness. Nobody responded as the whirring increased. Suddenly all three doors on the metal columns that surrounded them slid open with a whoosh, revealing a small space inside.<br>"What are they?" Ginger asked, awed, as the whirring died down to a steady hum.  
>"No idea..." Sam muttered.<br>"The terminal!" Alex said, springing to his feet. "It must work now!" He then ran over to the ladder and began climbing, hurriedly followed by the other three, who didn't want to be left alone with the odd machines in the room now filled with the steady noise of working machinery. Alex, much faster than them on the ladder despite his shoulder, reached the top and disappeared from view. When the other three reached the terminal room, Alex was sitting at the glowing terminal, keys clacking. "This is astounding! I've never seen anything like this! It doesn't run on any OS I've ever seen...in fact, it doesn't run on any particular OS at all! We just switched on a Supercomputer!"  
>"No lie?" Sam gasped, walking over. "That's crazy. What's one doing here?"<br>"Beats me. Oh wow, now this is really crazy. It's telling me that this terminal can access a kind of virtual reality... a life-sized video game, if you will. Tuh...please...everyone knows that's all science fiction..." He chuckled. "Oh, hey, check this out." A window appeared in the main screen, showing hundreds of items. "All of them are heavily encrypted..." Alex mused, typing furiously. "Except for...this one." Ashley and Ginger crowded around the terminal in time to see a small window pop up, showing a boy with white skin, blonde hair, glasses, and a long-sleeved red shirt sitting in the same chair that Alex was. Alex shifted awkwardly. "It's a video. Playback." He hit a key, and the video started.  
>"My name is Jeremie Belpois." The boy said in a slightly nasally tone of voice. "I am a student at Kadic Academy, and very soon, I'll be a graduate. Useless information aside, if you're sitting here watching this, it means you've found a way down here and brought the Supercomputer back to life. Normally I would ask you to turn it back off immediately, but I must ask you an enormous favor of you and ask you to leave it on for reasons that shall be explained later and not to alert the authorities, despite the dangers that it may bring." The four friends exchanged worried looks, then turned back to the screen. "This computer is, obviously, unique. The Supercomputer houses an entire virtual world called Lyoko."<br>"Impossible!" Alex gasped. "That doesn't exist yet, not for years!"  
>"The machines downstairs are called Scanners. They take people to Lyoko via a virtualization program."<br>"This is surreal." Sam muttered.  
>"The Scanners read into your subconscious and, when you're materialized onto Lyoko, you appear as something that distinctly stands out in you. If you look to your right, Lyoko should now appear on the holomap."<br>"I was right!" Ashley exclaimed, as the holomap flickered to life, showing something that looked like an odd addition sign made of five parts. One green, another gray, the next a dirty yellow, and another a dull white, all four of them bumpy as if there was actual terrain. They combined to make the addition sign by what looked like a miniature sun in the center. The whole thing was surrounded by two bands of tiny white lines, both reaching around the map to form a large 'X' where they met. The whole thing was quite the astounding sight, slowly rotating between the device on the ceiling and the glass top of the holomap.  
>"There are five sectors in all." Jeremie continued on the computer screen. "The top one, colored gray, is the mountain sector. The one on the right, the green one, is the forest sector. The white one right across is the ice sector, and the bottom one is the desert sector. The sphere in the center is where the Carthage sector, or Sector Five, is located. Sector Five is where Lyoko is kept running, and is also where X.A.N.A. makes a home. Now, back to information that is crucial, I am not the creator of Lyoko. Waldo Schaeffer, also known by the name Franz Hopper, created Lyoko." They all exchanged looks of shock. "Schaeffer, along with Lyoko, created X.A.N.A., a multi-agent program. X.A.N.A. was originally created to destroy something created by the French Government called Project Carthage, a program designed to disrupt enemy communications. X.A.N.A. somehow became sentient, however-my theory is from all of Schaeffer's return-to-the-past trips in order to have enough time to work on Lyoko and X.A.N.A.-and when Schaeffer fled to Lyoko in an effort to hide from the French Government, X.A.N.A. attacked. Schaeffer tried to reason with X.A.N.A., and when it was unresponsive, Schaeffer was forced to shut down the Supercomputer, with himself still inside. This was back in 1994. It lay dormant for ten long years, until I found in back in 2004. When I switched it back on, I found Aelita-Schaeffer's daughter, who had been materialized back in 1994 as well." Here Jeremie chuckled. "At first I named her Maya, because she couldn't remember her name, or her life on earth. Aelita couldn't be devirtualized at first, which meant that if she lost all her life points she would be gone forever. I eventually succeeded in creating a program that would allow her to be devirtualized, but to do so she would have to be inside a neutral tower in order for me to run the program. Now, to explain the towers before I forget...er...there are towers in each sector, about forty-something in all. Depending on what aura the tower is radiating indicates what is happening. Red means X.A.N.A. has activated it. Through these towers X.A.N.A. can reach out to the real world and cause havoc, but we were able to counter his attacks by having Aelita enter the tower and enter a code: LYOKO. This deactivated the tower, and stopped the attack. Blue means the tower is neutral. White was only seen under two circumstances-when my friends were exiting Sector Five through one of the data tunnels and used the tower as an exit tower, and when Waldo Schaeffer-who, I forgot to mention, became a prisoner of X.A.N.A.- had taken over the tower to help us. The last aura, green, is only seen when the tower is taken over from here, and by here I mean this terminal. Er, anyways, back to Aelita. In Sector Five, there existed a monster called the Scyphozoa. The Scyphozoa was created by X.A.N.A.-possibly the first monster ever-to steal Aelita's memories from her, something X.A.N.A. needed to escape the Supercomputer. If you haven't gathered by now, X.A.N.A. is very EVIL. Anyways. X.A.N.A. eventually succeeded in stealing Aelita's memories. Her memories were one of the keys to Lyoko, the one X.A.N.A. did not have. Once X.A.N.A. had her memories, however, he succeeded in destroying Lyoko and Aelita, and escaped to the internet. Schaeffer, however, saved his daughter and Lyoko through methods unknown. Aelita, now with her memory restored, was now able to be devirtualized normally. X.A.N.A. now concentrated on destroying Lyoko as a whole. He succeeded in destroying all four sectors by possessing Aelita by means of the Scyphozoa and having her enter XANA instead of LYOKO in towers in the four regions, leaving only Sector Five. Around this time we let another-William Dunbar-join our group. He didn't last long, however-he was possessed by the Scyphozoa and destroyed Lyoko's core, finishing Sector Five. Inside the empty Supercomputer, he was changed into X.A.N.A.'s servant. Waldo Schaeffer contacted me, however, and helped me rebuild Lyoko. X.A.N.A. now started creating things called Replikas, which were exactly what they sound like. They were replicas of the original five sectors of Lyoko, each one powered by another supercomputer somewhere in the real world. The entrances to these Replikas were located in the Digital Sea, which is located under each of the four main sectors. Anything that falls in is devirtualized and lost forever. I developed two things to destroy X.A.N.A.'s Replikas. One was the Skidbladnir-a ship capable of transporting my friends through the Digital Sea to the Replikas, but it was eventually destroyed by the Kollosus-and the other was a teleportation program that would let my friends, once linked to a tower in one of the Replikas, teleport to the place where the Supercomputer that ran the particular Replika was in the real world, so they could destroy it." Onscreen, Jeremie started due to a grating, screeching sound to his left. "Oh, er, Aelita, what, um, what're you doing here?"<br>"I wanted to help." Said a female voice from off-screen. Footsteps were heard, and a girl with shocking pink hair wearing a dark pink jumper dress over a light pink hooded long-sleeved shirt appeared to Jeremie's left. Jeremie could be seen blushing. "Oh, uh, O.K. Er...the others...?"  
>"Don't worry, they don't know we're here."<br>"Oh, good."  
>"So, where are you at?"<br>"I'm about to finish explaining the Replikas. Oh, and this is Aelita Schaeffer, person or persons who is or are watching." Jeremie introduced the girl, who smiled and waved. "Anyways, William kept showing up during our destruction of the Replikas. Now X.A.N.A.'s servant, he could command X.A.N.A.'s creatures. We eventually freed him from X.A.N.A.'s clutches. He had no recollection of the long while he had spent under X.A.N.A.'s control."  
>"Let me talk. You've said too much already." Aelita laughed and Jeremie nodded. "So, William was freed. Jeremie, once realizing that the number of Supercomputers that X.A.N.A. had under his control was far too many so that we could continue fighting him like we always did, created a multi-agent system that would destroy X.A.N.A. once and for all." Here Aelita shifted uncomfortably. "My father...we found him, but Jeremie's system didn't have enough power to do anything. My father sacrificed himself to give the system enough power to fully destroy X.A.N.A." Both Jeremie and Aelita were silent for a moment.<br>"The problem is..." Jeremie started again, slightly reluctantly. "...I have found reason to believe that X.A.N.A. has not been completely wiped out. Small things that lead me to see that X.A.N.A. hid a small, undeveloped part of itself somewhere in the Supercomputer. Neither I nor Aelita have found this part. The reason that you should not shut the Supercomputer down immediately is because you have hopefully switched it back on at a time that is far enough into the future that X.A.N.A. is able to be detected and fully destroyed."  
>"The current year is 2008." Aelita spoke up now, looking into the camera. "It is our last year here at Kadic. X.A.N.A. was thought to be finished about one and a half, two years ago. X.A.N.A. is still undetectable to us, which is why we ask you to continue our work. The world isn't safe until X.A.N.A. is gone forever."<br>"This video will end in the next few seconds." Jeremie said, starting to type. "If you accept to continue our work...type 'Schaeffer' into the box that will appear once this video closes. If not...shut the Supercomputer down immediately. Leave. Forget about this place. Let someone else save the world."  
>"Good luck." Aelita said softly. Then the video ended and the window closed, only to be replaced by a smaller window in the middle of the screen. The words 'DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?' appeared inside, along with nine blanks, a cursor blinking on the first one. Alex sighed.<br>"Well? What do we do? That was an astounding amount of information...yet we now know this is very real."  
>"It's dangerous." Ginger said. "I say...I say we give it a shot. It sounds just like a big videogame, so how hard can it really be?"<br>"I think I agree with Ginger." Ashley now spoke up. "We can figure this out. It shouldn't take more than a week, right?" She smiled.  
>"I'm all for it. This X.A.N.A. doesn't have a thing on us." Sam said, straightening up.<br>"Well, looks like the decision is unanimous." Alex grinned. "Lyoko, here we go. S, c, h, a, e, double f, e again...and r." Alex hit enter, and the box disappeared to be replaced by another video window, again with Belpois sitting in the chair. The video started playing automatically.  
>"Thank you." Belpois said. "Thank you for choosing to continue our work. The first thing you need to do is make yourself immune to a program that is launched when there are things to be forgotten: Return to the Past."<br>"He's got to be joking." Alex said, stunned.  
>"The Supercomputer has the capability to return everything to a set of coordinates in the past if there is an attack that afflicts people out in the open, and it needs to be forgotten. Or even if someone stumbles upon the Laboratory, you can return to the past to erase the memory that they were ever here. Use this program sparingly, however-it seems to strengthen X.A.N.A. . To become immune to this program, you have to be virtualized through the scanners at least once. Now, because I am assuming that there are at least four of you, someone has to stay behind to run the Supercomputer. I have placed notes about how to run the Supercomputer all through the programs that are most often needed. Good luck."<br>"I'll stay." Alex said, as the window closed and was replaced by multitudes of smaller windows, different things happening in every one. "I want to tinker with this thing a bit more."  
>"All right. We'll head down to the scanners...?" Ashley asked hesitantly.<br>"Yeah. Go on, I'll find and start the program." Alex turned and began typing, searching for the program that would supposedly send them to Lyoko as the other three headed down the ladder and into the Scanner room.  
>"So...we just stand in them?" Sam asked, looking inside a Scanner for a sign of what to do next.<br>"Apparently." Ashley took her camera and placed it on the floor, then stepped into the Scanner closest to her. "Oh, creepy."  
>"It's like being inside of a golden coffin..." Ginger said, her voice floating dreamily out from her Scanner.<br>"It's not that bad." Sam said, leaning against the inner wall of his. They were quiet for a bit, listening to the hum of the machinery.  
>"I feel nervous." Ashley said, shifting uncomfortably inside her Scanner. "What if Belpois was lying, what if something goes wrong?"<br>"Nothing's going to go wrong, and he definitely wasn't lying." Alex's voice echoed through the Scanner room, causing them all to jump.  
>"What..."<br>"It's an earpiece with a mic attached. There are speakers in the Scanners. Spiffy, eh? Belpois also explained to me that I can talk to you guys when you're in Lyoko too. But enough chitchat, ready to take the plunge? I'm launching the program now." The whirring in the Scanner room started up, and the doors on the Scanners slid shut with a whoosh.  
>"Eep!" Ginger cried. Their clothes fluttered slightly as the whirring intensified.<br>"Alex, what's happening?" Sam's voice came through his earpiece a floor above.  
>"The Scanners are analyzing you. The procedure should begin momentarily." Alex typed commands into the computer, led on by the instructions left by Jeremie, hoping he didn't mess up. Downstairs, Ashley's hair began to flutter as the whirring seemed to reach its peak. Suddenly, she felt herself leave the floor of the Scanner. "My god, what's happening, Alex? I'm floating!"<br>"So are Ginger and Sam, as I've heard." Alex's voice echoed inside the small space. "Don't worry, the program's running fine. I have to scan each one of you individually, hold on. Transfer...Ginger...Sam...Ashley! Scanner...Ginger...Sam...Ashley! And...Virtualization!" A blinding white light filled the small chamber as the whirring intensified to a ludicrous pitch. Ashley felt her hair be blown back, as if she was standing in a strong wind. The white light flooded her vision, blinding her, overtook her five other senses, seemingly numbing her brain, leading her into a blissful white peace and then...  
>pulsations...<p> 


End file.
